Asian family adventures - A New Home
by Imagimanga
Summary: The Asian family moves into the neighborhood, and a certain pair of twins are curious.


**AN: The Asian family moves into the neighborhood, and a certain pair of twins are curious.**

* * *

"Yong Soo, sit back down and put on your seat belt!"

The seven-year-old boy puffed out his cheeks and slid down to his bottom. "But Yao, there are geese flying behind us!"

"We're not there yet, so sit down until we get there!" Yao groaned.

"YAO," a six-year-old girl whined, "Xiao-Xiao won't stop poking me!"

"I'm not poking you," the eight-year-old muttered, glaring at his sister.

"Mei, for the last time, no one is poking you!"

"Yao, I gotta go to the bathroom..." Yong Soo mumbled.

"Ew..." Mei's face looked disgusted. "Yong Soo has to go to the bathroom..."

"We just took a break ten minutes ago!" Yao sighed. "Why didn't you go then?"

"I didn't have to go then!" Yong Soo complained. "I need to go the bathroom! I need to go pee!"

"Stop telling us that kind of stuff!" Mei squirmed in her seat. "Yao, tell Yong Soo to be quiet!"

"Stop hitting me!" Xiao grumbled. "Your hands are in my face!"

"Yao, I gotta go pee!"

"Yao, I want Yong Soo to be quiet!"

"I said stop hitting me, Mei!"

"EVERYBODY QUIET!" Yao yelled. The screaming instantly ceased, and only the whimpers from Yong Soo could be heard inside the car. "Would you like me to dump you all to the side of the road?!"

"No, Yao," they all answered.

The drive was silent, and not even Kiku dared to speak.

Yao was on a long strip of road, the three youngest siblings sighing out of boredom. They whispered to each other in fear that Yao might yell at them again. The three considered their chances and decided not to risk it. The two boys shot suggestive glances at their sister, but she puffed her cheeks and looked out the window. Xiao and Yong Soo stared at each other before deciding it with a game of rock, paper, scissors. Yong Soo was victorious and pumped a low fist as Xiao groaned inwardly.

The boy poked Kiku on his left side and the ten-year-old looked back from the passenger seat. Xiao pointed to his wrist then towards Yao. Kiku understood him immediately, but he couldn't believe the boy. Kiku looked at Yao and instantly went for it.

"Leon, Mei, and Yong Soo asked how long it will take until we get there," he said. The three younger siblings glared at their older brother accusatively as if he betrayed them.

"We'll make one last stop at a gas station before we get there," Yao answered. "Everyone _must_ take a bathroom break and then we'll head straight to the house. It will take only around forty-five minutes to get there. It's still a long way."

The three young siblings groaned.

"But there's nothing here!" Mei said. "This is a road in the middle of nowhere!"

"The only thing that's been here since we left the city was dirt, road, tree, sky, and dirt," Yong Soo added. "How long until we get to the town?"

"This is the road leading to the town," Yao explained. "If we take this for about another ten minutes, we'll be able to see the town."

The three sat still and quiet for three minutes before growing tired again. "Kiku, tell us something about the place," Yong Soo said.

Kiku lifted his phone up to his face and turned on the data before searching up the town on his browser. "Every month they have farmer's markets..." Kiku paused to scroll down to find more interesting facts. "In October, there is a huge fair for Halloween. There is a huge parade, kids go around trick-or-treating downtown, there are displays of jack-o-lanterns, haunted houses and corn mazes, costume contests, stores are still open for you to shop, restaurants are still open as well, stands of food are everywhere-apparently the maximum distance ever recorded between two stands was five yards, and there are rides. Its popular to start out watching the parade in the morning, start trick-or-treating in your neighborhood right after, and then start moving towards downtown where the rides and food are. A lot of older kids like going to a really popular haunted corn maze at eleven o'clock out towards the edge of town."

"Whoa, that's a lot of information," Yao commented. "And all in a single day?"

Kiku nodded. "It all started when they just wanted to have a parade every Halloween, but soon it just blossomed into a huge fair."

"I want to be a princess for Halloween!" Mei smiled and kicked her legs up and down.

"I'm gonna be a dragon!" Yong Soo added. "And I'll _eat_ you!"

Mei angrily stuck out her tongue at her brother. "Yao won't let you!"

"I'll be a ninja," Xiao said. "And I'll pull everybody's pants down at the fair without them knowing."

The sister huffed and crossed her arms. "Yao, Xiao-Xiao said he would do bad stuff again!"

Yao ignored his sister's constant complaints and asked Kiku what he wanted to dress up as. Kiku shrugged and locked his phone.

"I might want to stay home this year." The others gasped exaggeratedly.

"What?!" Mei and Yong Soo shouted.

"You can't skip Halloween," Xiao said. "How else do you get free candy?"

Yao shook his head. "I can't believe you're growing up..." Kiku visibly glowered at this. He tried to block out Yao's next words. "I used to dress you up in that Hello Kitty costume, remember? And then you grew out of it when you were six. Now you're growing out of Halloween! Next thing you'll know, you're moving out and going to college..."

Kiku blocked out his siblings' laughter by pressing his hands to his ears and turned to the window. Mei leaned forward and giggled.

"Kiku say 'nya'!" she said between giggles. She watched her brother redden in embarrassment.

"Kiku used to be a Hello Kitty doll!" Yong Soo shrieked in amusement. He held his sides, helplessly laughing at his brother's embarrassment.

The victim of the teasing sank in his seat with a red, sour face. Yao glanced at his younger brother and sighed. "Stop-" Yao began.

"Do you have a picture?" Xiao asked with a grin. Then Kiku covered his face with a jacket and cringed. Of course Yao would have a picture, and of course he would show it to them.

"...I do," Yao answered. Xiao leaned forward to pick Yao's phone out of the cup holder in the front.

As Xiao unlocked the phone, Mei and Yong Soo leaned sideways to get a better glimpse of their brother in a cat costume. Xiao tapped on the photo gallery and scrolled down through countless pictures of themselves and selfies of Yao's friends until he reached the bottom. He started scrolling up slowly, trying to find the first pictures of Kiku in the Hello Kitty costume. Suddenly Mei and Yong Soo burst into fits of laughter, and Kiku pressed the jacket to cover his ears.

"Stop laughing you three," Yao ordered. Mei and Yong Soo still continued to laugh, and Xiao defended himself.

"I'm not laughing."

"Yes, you are. I can see your face through the rearview mirror." Yao glanced through the mirror and saw Xiao's puffed up cheeks and red face. That boy was trying too hard to keep it in.

"Look, Kiku! It's you!" Mei took the phone from Xiao's hands and waved it around her older brother's covered face. "You're wearing a bow, too!"

And thus, the teasing and laughing continued until the car stopped by a gas station. "Everyone out," Yao ordered.

Kiku slid out of the car stealthily, still covering his face with the jacket. His younger siblings jumped out and ran to the building. Yao sighed out of relief before exiting the car to refill the gas. He still had around thirty-five minutes of driving left. After the break, they continued the drive quietly. Mei fell asleep and the two younger brothers played games of 'I spy' and rock, paper, scissors.

"I won," Xiao announced.

"Agh!" Yong Soo grumbled. "Again!"

Kiku watched the scenery outside of his window change in green and blue blurs. He rested his head in the palm of his hand and let his eyes grace over the landscape tiredly. The ride had exhausted him, though the only thing that had happened to him was the Hello Kitty incident. Kiku watched the nature colors mix with neutral colors of brown, gray, and white. He sat up in his seat, forcing himself to wake up.

Xiao pushed Mei awake and the three younger siblings watched the buildings come into focus in the windows.

"Is this it?" Mei asked.

"Yeah. Get used to it," Yao said.

The four young siblings etched everything they got their eyes on into their brains. It was a very small town, so it made sense that there was greenery practically everywhere, no matter if it was a tree or a flower. To their left and right were spaced out buildings, many of which were stores for cars or for furniture. They noticed that there was a store for discarded couches, clothes, and books. A "junk store" as Mei called it. There were also few restaurants, some secluded in an area away from all of the stores. Several buildings were of no knowledge to the children. Kiku noticed a hospital come into view as well as a high school in the distance.

"Where are all of the stores?" Mei asked. "There's got to be a place for everybody to buy their clothes or food."

"The next turn to the left," Yao explained, "is towards the square for the shops. Games, clothes, food, and all of that. We're heading towards downtown, close to where the house is."

" _Where the house is."_ Kiku thought about it. Yao wasn't lying, but it wasn't the entire truth. It was true that they would live here, but none of them would admit it out loud. They only referred to this place as 'the town' or 'where the house is.' There was no home here. And, technically, they didn't live here yet, either.

"This is downtown?" Yong Soo asked. "It looks really old."

"It's a small town," Xiao mumbled. "Do you expect them to have enough money to rebuild everything?"

"I like it," Mei said. "It has an antique and vintage aura to it."

"You're six," Xiao said. "Don't use that kind of vocabulary in front of me." Mei stuck out her tongue and Xiao scowled.

"I'm _turning_ seven!" she huffed.

"That's the library," Kiku diverted their argument. "It hosts a lot of events like reading to dogs or learning activities. They also have storytelling and reading contests where you can win prizes." Mei, Xiao, and Yong Soo turned their attention to the somewhat medium-sized building. It had two floors, and seemed like it was a new installment, but Kiku's next sentence proved them wrong. "It's been here since seventy years ago."

"What?!" Yong Soo shouted. "But it looks so new!"

"They remodel it once in a while," Kiku explained. "To the left is the elementary school. And straight forward is where all of the shops are. There's a very old theater down there, too."

The three younger siblings engraved everything into their memories. The car turned right and then Kiku started talking again. "That building over there is pretty famous, actually. It serves barbecue and burgers. Apparently they're very good. You can even buy the meat from them.

"Over there is the middle school. The space behind it is their football field. Somewhere to the right is a preschool."

"Are we getting closer?" Yong Soo impatiently asked.

"Only a few more minutes," Yao said.

Mei, Xiao, and Yong Soo started talking rapidly about the town. They talked about where they wanted to visit and what they wanted to do in the town. In a few minutes, just as Yao had told, they arrived in the neighborhood and everyone was silent, studying the new surroundings.

They weren't cookie cutter houses. Each one was different, and they had spacious backyards as well. The siblings took notice of a park in the middle of the neighborhood. In the course of three turns and a long street, they finally found the house.

It was grey paneled house with blue accents. The roof was tiled black and several windows dotted the front. It seemed like a rather large house, and it had two garage doors. The driveway was already filled with a move-in truck, so Yao parked the car on the side of the road. Mei, Yong Soo, and Xiao were excited to see this new environment, but Kiku was less than happy.

Kiku was fine living in the secluded Chinatown in the city. He was perfectly fine with having a shabby-looking home above a three-out-of-five rated Chinese restaurant. But his parents were not fond of their five children living in a ramshackle building that could collapse in a 2.0 magnitude earthquake. Thus, their parents told them to move out to a small town in the suburbs where they could be safe from earthquakes and crime. Honestly, Kiku didn't understand his parents' reasoning for forcing their children to live nearly three hours away from them. They weren't poor, but their mom and dad worked nearly 24/7 in a small shop beside the Chinese restaurant they lived above. Of course, that wasn't the only thing Kiku was unhappy about. It was a certain secret that only he, Yao, and their parents knew of, but never spoke. The type of secret Yao and their parents didn't care about, but Kiku did.

The slamming of the car doors snapped Kiku from his reverie. He exited the car and helped everyone move the furniture inside the house.

* * *

 _Earlier..._

"Daddy, what's that truck doing?" Alfred asked Arthur. The father looked up from his book and peered out of the window.

"That's a moving truck. It's used when you need to move all of your furniture into another house."

"Oh! Look, Mattie!" Alfred grabbed his brother away from the train set. "Let's watch the moving truck!"

"But it's not doing anything..." Matthew said. "I want to play with the trains!"

"No fighting," Arthur scolded. Francis chuckled at the sight.

"The truck won't be doing a lot right now. It's waiting for the people who are moving in," Francis explained.

"Who's it waiting for?" Alfred asked curiously.

"I heard that it's a group of kids," Arthur said, sipping his tea. "Though, I don't understand why kids are moving into the neighborhood."

"Maybe something happened with the parents," Francis commented.

"The oldest is supposedly eighteen, so there is an adult. But only legally. I don't know how well it will work out with a bunch of siblings in a house."

"How many?"

"Five counting the oldest."

"Really? Do you know how old the other four are?"

"I don't think they'd be too young... It'd be troublesome if they were."

"True. But it would make even less sense if their ages were close together. Couldn't they just have all of them move out separately then?"

"Yes... I guess we won't know until they get here."

"Daddy! Papa!" Alfred called. "Someone's coming!"

Francis got up from the couch and set down his coffee. With a yawn, he walked over to the door, being careful not to step on Matthew's toys. He peeked out of the eyehole and gasped. "What is _he_ doing here?" he seethed. Francis opened the door and was greeted with an enthusiastic face.

"Francis, I have great news-!"

" _Antonio_ ," Francis hissed. "What are you _doing_ on my porch?"

Antonio rolled his eyes. "But Francis, I-!"

"Stop calling me by my first name! I'm your teacher!"

Arthur stole a glance at the scene. The boy Francis was talking to looked around fifteen years old. He was wearing a white t-shirt and jeans with sneakers. It was a lazy outfit for teenagers. He was a high school student. More specifically, Francis' student.

"Antonio Fernandez!"

"Don't forget 'Carriedo', _amigo_."

Arthur felt Francis' need to slam the door shut intensify. He looked back down at his book looking busy. Whether or not he did, Antonio peered inside and gasped.

"That's your husband, right? Arthur? Hey, Arthur!"

The said man spat out his tea. "Why has one of your students come to bother us, Francis?"

"Antonio, you have to understand that I _cannot_ allow your club of two members become official!" Francis shouted at him. "You understand that, right? You need at least two more members to become an official club!"

"Gilbert and I can handle it by ourselves!" Antonio fought.

"What's he talking about?" Arthur whispered in Francis' ear. He had walked up to him in curiosity as to what would go down.

"He and Gilbert are... close friends. It's so bad, they take the exact same classes and often get in trouble for disrupting class," Francis explained.

"Francis, why don't you become part of the club then-?"

"I'm not going to become part of your bad friend duo!" Francis shouted.

"Oh, come on..." Antonio drawled. "Can you say no to a face like this?" Antonio playfully puckered his lips and widened his eyes. He was expecting a laugh out of his teacher, he didn't expect this.

"I will not let you and Gilbert ruin things as they are now!" Francis said. "Everybody's already upset with me that I let you two off when you pranked the other students in class!"

" _Ah, lo siento._ I'm sorry. We didn't plan for it to hurt anybody," Antonio offered. "We'll make up for it! I promise! Besides..." He picked Alfred and Matthew up in his arms. "How can you say no to faces like these!"

Francis deadpanned. "They are my children. Of course I can say no to them!"

"Then-!"

"No, Antonio. Please leave."

Antonio shook his head. "Unfortunately, I can't. Well, I mean I could, but I won't. I want to meet the new neighbors!"

Arthur raised a brow. "You know about them?"

Antonio nodded. "I know a lot. I've already heard that most people know that they're a group of kids—siblings. The oldest is eighteen, and the one after that is ten."

"Ten?!" Arthur gasped. "But aren't there more after that? How young are they?"

"The next three descend by one year. Nine, eight, and seven. They haven't had their birthdays yet, so it's actually eighteen, ten, eight, seven, and six. The youngest is a girl, the rest are boys."

"Wow, how did you know?"

"Gilbert," Antonio said. "His younger brother is ten, so the new ten-year-old neighbor will be in his class. After that I did my own research."

Arthur shook his head. "I can't believe how young they are! Won't it be difficult without their parents?"

"Supposedly the group is very responsible," Antonio told. "But that's just a rumor. Everything else is true."

"Um..." Alfred said, "can we please get down?" Antonio looked down at his arms.

"Hm? Oh, yes. Sorry." The Spaniard let the boys go, and the twins ran back inside to play with the train set. "By the way, how old are Alfred and Matthew?"

"Four," Arthur answered. "They'll turn five in July."

"Nice to see you two getting along," Francis mumbled. Movement caught his eye and he stared out at the house across from them. "They're here."

Antonio turned around and Arthur looked past him. A red mini-van parked alongside the street and five siblings exited the vehicle. The family was just as Antonio said. The youngest, the sister, danced around in a purple flowing skirt to the door of the moving truck. The two youngest brothers looked like polar opposites, but they seemed to be very close. They talked together as they made their way to the back of the truck. Then there was the oldest. He was wearing a slight frown across his face and yelled out at his siblings.

"Stop moving around so much! Get over to the side so nothing will fall on you two!"

Lastly, the second eldest exited the vehicle. He wore headphones around his neck and held a phone connecting to them in his hand. The boy pursed his lips at the sight of the house. He didn't seem very happy to be living in a new house.

"Mattie, let's go say hi!" Alfred pulled Matthew out the door quickly enough to dodge Arthur's arms. They raced across the car-free road and towards the other side of the street, Alfred laughing as Matthew yelled for him to slow down.

"Slow down! I can't catch up!" Matthew yelled. The both of them could hear the scolding of their parents from the porch, but Alfred kept on running.

"Those two!" Arthur fumed. "I can't believe them!" He ran out to catch them before they did something stupid.

Yao turned around and noticed the two of them running towards him. He was shocked when one of them yelled out a hello. "Hello?" he said back.

"Who is it?" Yong Soo asked. He jumped to the twins and grinned. "I'm Yong Soo! I'll be living here from now on!" He pointed to Xiao. "That's my older brother, Xiao. But you can call him Leon since nobody can pronounce his name correctly. That's my younger sister, Wanwan! She's actually named Mei, but we like calling her that! And then that's my oldest brother, Yao!"

"I'm Alfred!" the rambunctious twin introduced. "This is my twin brother, Mattie!" The other twin waved hello.

"Oh!" Yong Soo pointed to Kiku. "That's my other brother, Kiku. He doesn't really like Yao for some reason."

Kiku stared down at the twins in confusion. "Who are you two?"

Alfred looked up at the boy and stared in awe. "Are you a cool kid? The one who listens to cool music?"

The ten-year-old boy was at a loss. "Um... I don't think so."

"Oh," Alfred looked strangely upset. "Then what about games?"

"I play a lot of games," Kiku said.

"He probably plays a lot of video games," Matthew told Alfred. "That's so cool!"

"Alfred! Matthew!" Arthur called out, stepping onto the driveway. "I can't believe your bothering them! Go back home!"

"But Daddy, I wanna help them!" Alfred argued. "I wanna help them move the stuff in!"

Arthur ignored him and faced Yao. "I'm so sorry. He's always like this."

Yao shook his head. "It's fine. He didn't do anything. You live across the street?"

"Yes," Arthur answered.

"Alfred, come here!" Francis called out, Antonio on his heels. "You too, Matthew!"

"We'll be dealing with them for the rest of our lives," Kiku muttered to Yao.

Yao only shook his head. "It can't be that bad."

Kiku silently disagreed. Everything was different now. The cramped space they used to live in was now replaced with a spacious house. The smell of food that greeted them in the morning from the restaurant downstairs was now replaced with the smell of fresh air. The sound of speeding cars was now replaced with birds singing and the wind. The elderly couples that visited every week were now replaced with a young family across the street.

There would be trouble making new friends, of course. And then he would have trouble adjusting to a school for one year, then leave to the middle school the next year. Things would be a lot different now that Yao had to work everyday from six in the morning to six at night. He was trying to find a job with good pay without too much time for him to take care of his siblings. Kiku would have to take care of Mei, Yong Soo, and Xiao from now on as well. And then there were the neighbors, Alfred, Matthew, and their parents. Kiku could tell that there were even more strange neighbors they would meet after meeting Antonio for the first time.

It was definitely a huge change from the normal and mundane schedule from the city where Kiku had to wake up, go to school, and go home. Now it was different. There would be distractions. There would be the nice weather begging him to go outside. There were the two twins from across the street that would hang out with him because they want to be 'cool' like him.

Kiku smiled softly. Things were going to be terrible, but he guessed that was what made things not so bad.

* * *

 **AN: How was it? Did you enjoy? I hope you did! Have some cookies I baked! I'm so glad got around writing this!**


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